Building & Scaling

Starting a much cooler morning, we were joined by Rosie Neave who began with a massive hit of inspiration to build more confidence in nature and why we should. Her academic research had led her to develop a practice around nature and coaching. She revealed how a capitalist, patriarchal structure has devastating effects on our environment. Yet, very quickly guided us to how change our thoughts and put into action what we can be doing to use nature in small accessible bouts and building confidence in nature, to support our mental wellbeing. She also spoke of how we can allow nature to creep into our urban environments and rebuild that relationship we have with nature and the natural world. Rosie has developed lots of tools for women and those who are interested in engaging with the natural world and how to go about doing that. For more tips on how to do this, check out https://www.vertelle.co.uk/

This afternoon we welcomed Gillian Easson, who spoke of investing in the creative and cultural sector in her hometown of Dundee. She spoke of how she took the initiative to start a digital blog about her sector, and focused on how creativity and culture can help improve the wellness of a city’s citizens. And using the organisation and digital platform Creative Dundee, to bring about social change. Gillian had some great tips about working with much larger organisations, especially while leading a creative platform. She used beautiful imagery to discuss intense topics like learning to scale and the pressure of taking care of your community. She was championed by her city and how she utilised the way her citizens looked at creativity to revitalise creativity and culture across Dundee. To learn more about Gillian’s work, check out https://creativedundee.com/ – her work and approach to inclusion and working with artists as researchers is inspiring.